How would leaving the city change you?

Lately I've thought a lot about what living in the city means to me, and how much of my life would change if I had to leave. We recently had a discussion with someone who keeps kosher, and he gleamed, telling us about all of his favorite places to eat. I was telling DW later that night that his way of life would drastically change if he were to leave the city. I don't recall a great number of kosher restaurants where I grew up on Long Island, and I'm sure that my town was not an anomaly. Aside from just Judaism, New York surely caters to all walks of life.

For DW, I think a big change would be the change in availability to alternatives for cow's milk products (soy / sheep / goat / etc). I mentioned once before how I'd taken for granted the ease of getting a bagel with tofu cream cheese.

For my former co-worker, it meant not having the intellectual stimulation that he had grown accustomed to in NYC.

For me... I think maybe brunch. I met up with my BFF that I grew up with on LI and we searched high and low for brunch. We wound up settling on a diner in Sayville, but that was quite a far cry from brunch as I know it. DW later told me that I might have a touch of citiot in me, trying to have my city things while traveling. Youch... like a good whiff of bleach, that truth stung me on the inside.

Friends of ours who we posed this to last night said that they'd be giving up the 12-square-block community in which they've raised their family for the past 10 years. In other words, they felt they'd be giving up everything.
I'm also so excited to raise a child in this amazing center of variety and opportunity. Above all, I may fear being content in a house with a sprawling backyard so much that I never need to come back home.

What would moving to or from the city cause you to sacrifice? What would you really miss?

Picture Snapshot by me during the 2007 Thanksgiving Day Parade.